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Allowable Loads on Piles Formula and Calculator

Civil Engineering and Design
Mechanics of Materials

Allowable Loads on Piles Formula and Calculator

A dynamic formula extensively used in the United States to determine the allowable static load on a pile is the Engineering News formula. For piles driven by a drop hammer, the allowable load is:

Formula 1,
P_a = ( 2 · W · H ) / ( p + 1 )

Formula 2,
P_a = ( 2 · W · H ) / ( p + 0.1 )

Where:

P_a = allowable pile load, tons (kg)
W = weight of hammer, tons (kg)
H = height of drop, ft (m)
p = penetration of pile per blow, in (mm)

The preceding two equations include a factor of safety of 6.

For a group of piles penetrating a soil stratum of good bearing characteristics and transferring their loads to the soil by point bearing on the ends of the piles, the total allowable load would be the sum of the individual allowable loads for each pile. For piles transferring their loads to the soil by skin friction on the sides of the piles, the total allowable load would be less than the sum on the individual allowable loads for each pile, because of the interaction of the shearing stresses and strains caused in the soil by each pile.

Related:

• Impact Force Formulae and Calculator
• Pile Cap Design to Eurocode Spreadsheet Calculator
• Axially Loaded Pile Analysis Calculator Excel
• Ideal Pinned Column Buckling Equation and Calculation, Euler's Formula
• Buckling of Cylinder Plate Equations and Calculation
• Rankine Gordon Equation
• Buckling of a rectangular column on the basis of Murnaghan's formula for strain energy

References:

• Hicks - Handbook of Civil Engineering Calculations,
• McGraw-Hill.
• Kevin D. Wills, M.S.E., P.E., Consulting Engineer.